Oliver Willis

For some time now, Speaker Pelosi has allowed the minority Republicans to put all kinds of nonsense up to a vote in the House - attacking Rep. Pete Stark, MoveOn, etc. - the kind of stuff that Democrats in the minority were not allowed to do. Well, now Rep. Kucinich is offering up a privileged resolution calling for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. It will of course fail, but the question is if Pelosi will allow it on to the floor. The Democratic leadership have allowed themselves to get spun around on the most important issues of our time, allowing the Republicans impunity even as they remain in the minority - so will she allow a relatively high-profile member the right to have his grievance addressed in a vote on the floor?

I happen to not agree with Rep. Kucinich on hardly anything besides getting out of Iraq, but I certainly have more respect for him than I do for a serial idiot like Rep. John Boehner. He has earned the right to have his privileged resolution, no matter how much it goes down in flames (as it will) or how impractical it is (very) given the same rights Pelosi gives to the Republican minority time and time again.

This is the price the party leadership pays for being in the majority and still acting like the minority and allowing Bush & Co. to continue to screw up the country. This is why your approval ratings are in the toilet. We didn’t elect a Democratic majority to keep giving up Republican victories.

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GOP "Web 2.0" guru David All seems to be gloating about Republican pols being on Twitter more than Democrats. He links to a post asking "where is nancy".

A: Nancy Pelosi is too busy being Speaker Of The House Of Representatives to eff around with freaking Twitter.

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Saw that coming.

A federal grand jury has indicted Lousiana Rep. William Jefferson (D), accusing him of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also charging him of bribing an official of the Nigerian government.

Also to note for the record: Can the last person with any brains at the Congressional Black Caucus please turn the lights off? This is the horse you guys chose to back.

Previously:
House Democrats Make A Dumbass Move

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Rep. Rahm Emanuel, one of the principal architects of the Democratic deposing of the corrupt Republican House in 2006 is speaking to the Brookings Institution on Wednesday. TPMCafe has a preview.

That common thread: On every conceivable policy front, the administration and the GOP have placed party before country, and government has become politicized to its core. Rather than casting the administration’s manifold failings as simply the result of incompetence, Emanuel will argue that they’re really driven by nothing more than all-pervasive partisanship — the imperative of putting party before country, always, without fail.

The Republican record from 2001-present is a clear sign that you cannot put people in charge of our government who hate our government and seek to use the structures the founders put in place as if they were prostitutes in the street.

(picture via)

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One of the repeated mantras of Dem chairman Howard Dean has been that the power given to the Democrats in the 2006 election was simply a loan from the American people. They can take it away at any given time. So, someone explain to me why on God’s green earth the Democratic leadership would be so utterly asinine, moronic and downright stupidly suicidal to put William Jefferson on one of the most important committees in congress?

Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who’s facing an ongoing federal corruption probe, is being granted a spot on the Homeland Security Committee, according to Democratic aides.

The appointment will be announced Friday, according to one aide who requested anonymity because the decision isn’t yet official.

…

The committee oversees the Homeland Security Department and its web of agencies designed to protect against terrorism on U.S. soil.

The committee has oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was widely panned for its response to Hurricane Katrina in Jefferson’s hometown of New Orleans.

As a member of the committee, Jefferson will not have direct oversight of the FBI or the Justice Department.

A former Jefferson aide has already pleaded guilty to corruption in the ongoing investigation, as has a businessman who alleged in his plea agreement that he bribed Jefferson in order to win contracts with African nations.

That’s right, Jefferson, who was caught with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, is going to be on the Homeland Security Committee? In all likelihood this is being done to satiate the howling of the Congressional Black Caucus, but it just is not worth it. The CBC is already dirty from their previous support of Jefferson, and this just makes them worse for allowing cronyism to triumph over plain common sense: you don’t put a crook on a major committee, if any committee at all.

If the Democratic party wants to maintain and grow its majority, this is not the way and they bring shame on those who are its strongest supporters and more importantly, it brings shame to the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Man, am I glad Cynthia McKinney isn’t around any more.

The man who knocked Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney out of Congress said he immediately recognized the name tag of the Capitol Hill police officer he ran into by chance in a congressional hallway this week.

After all, it was the officer’s much-publicized altercation with McKinney - when she objected to being asked for identification before entering a Hill office building - that solidified opposition to the combative lawmaker and paved the way for the freshman-elect, Hank Johnson, to beat her.

“Quite frankly, I’ve been looking forward to meeting him,” Johnson said in an interview at the hotel where he’s staying a few blocks from the Capitol during new-member orientation. “That’s just something that needed to be done.”

“I apologized to him for any embarrassment the incident may have caused him or his family, and he appreciated that,” Johnson added. “I told him if he ever asked me to comply, that I would, that he wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

Johnson, 52, is among more than 50 new members in town this week to learn the ropes of a becoming a member of Congress. He is one of three new black members and the only new practicing Buddhist.

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